Do You Ever Laugh at Your Baby?

As a first-time parent of a young toddler, I constantly am questioning myself about my parenting skills. Am I feeding her well enough? Am I dressing her warm enough? Am I making sure she's getting the right care while I'm at work?

So imagine my surprise the other day when I asked myself if I was an awful parent. Not because of letting her have animal crackers for dinner because that's all she would eat. Not because I let her stay up just a tad past her bedtime because she was so wound up. No, I thought I was an awful parent because I laughed at her.

A little background

My daughter is just over a year old. She just started walking and talking, and is the light of my life. My husband feels the same way for her, and tells everyone he knows that she has instilled so much joy in our lives. We try to be really good parents to her, and are so careful about everything that involves her. We were the parents who spent hours on line researching car seats. We tested three baby gates at home before finding the "perfect" one and returning the others, just to make sure she was as safe as could be. We check on her several times a night, and we change her diaper at the first drop of wetness.

So what is it that we did that made us think we were being bad parents? We laughed at her. But let me explain...

A few days ago, we were all sitting around our living room coffee table. Our daughter was standing up against it on one side, and my husband and I were sitting on other side opposite of her, playing peek-a-boo. All of a sudden, she got real quiet and still. Her cheeks started puffing out and turned crimson, and she started grunting pretty loud (for a toddler). Of course, we knew what she was doing (going to the bathroom in her diaper, if you really couldn't figure it out). But instead of just looking the other way and letting her do her thing, for some reason, the sudden urge to start laughing hysterically took over! We couldn't stop, we just looked at her little face, all wrenched in concentration, and we couldn't stop laughing together!

It's how you laugh that makes the difference

My husband and I felt so bad for laughing at our daughter right in front of her while she was obviously concentrating on something, though she didn't seem to notice our antics. We talked about it afterwards in passing, and realized we only giggle because she was so darn cute. And being sleep deprived, hard-working, stressed out, mega-busy parents, sometimes the littlest things can break through and give you giggle fits. We realized it's not a bad thing at all, and it's all in how you laugh about it. We didn't have the giggles because of any malicious intent, but because we were simply enjoying our daughter's cuteness.

Laughing with life's little moments

After thinking about it for awhile, I realized this wasn't the only time we'd laughed at our daughter. There have been times when she's sneezed and a snot bubble the size of Rhode Island would be sitting on her face, and all she could do was giggle herself. Since learning to walk, there have been countless times she's fallen on her bum, where she's shouted "Uh-oh!" and we've giggled with her. And some of the hardest times I've laughed is watching her in the tub, splashing herself in the face and surprising herself every time. She's caught me laughing at her numerous times, but it's okay. Because she's seen me laugh at her antics, she knows that life's not to be taken too seriously, and it's okay to laugh at the little things.

Not the only ones

I had to pass on this story to other young parents that I know, and I was happy to find that so many parents laugh at these little things and have their kids laughing, too. So the next time you laugh at some of your kid's antics, just think, you're not necessarily making fun of them or anything. You're actually setting a good example by showing them that life's full of laughable moments, and that's a good thing that every kid should know.